I’m cheap. I feel I should disclose this immediately. I do not buy expensive brands. Never have, never will. My sister, who is four years older than me, used to cry when my mom refused to buy Guess jeans. My mother’s logic: I’m not paying eighty dollars for an upside-down triangle on your butt. For Christmas in sixth grade, Mom bought me stonewashed pink jeans. I wore them until they wore out, literally. She probably found them at Kmart. I didn’t care. They were pink.
I buy a majority of my clothes at TJMaxx and Marshalls, sometimes Target. I miss Gordmans and Tuesday Morning but refuse to shop at overpriced boutiques. Kohls’ prices have increased while their sales have decreased and after an incident at JCPenney about a decade ago in regards to their credit card, I no longer shop there. The few times I have bought a name brand item, it hasn’t worn well—a sweater pills after only one washing, the knub on my high heel falls off after one season, or the seam puckers after a washing in cold water.
I refuse to buy into the hype of name brands.
Now that I’ve aged, my skin needs different products, yet I don’t cower to trends. My makeup remover and night cream is Olay, I’m obsessed with Loreal’s Bambi eyes mascara (even though I grimace at its twelve dollar price tag), and I still wear Cover Girl blush in sable, the same one I used since high school. I adore the Toddlers and Tiaras hairspray—Elnett, which does what it advertises: disappears at the stroke of a brush. I do buy expensive dry shampoo, Moroccanoil, because the Dove makes my hair overly dry (although I use Dove if I know I’m going to put my hair up). At least twice a week, I slather Pantene’s Miracle Rescue conditioner on my hair, I use overly priced purple shampoo to eliminate brassy tones (although I’m not convinced it does anything) and every spring, before the temperatures rise enough for me to tan myself into melanoma, I spray myself with Neutrogena Micromist Deep Intensity—until they discontinued it.
This search for my spray tan led me to Sephora, then they sent me a free birthday gift, which I then claimed at the store. Which leads to my current story.
I reluctantly went to Kohls when my son needed dress shoes. When I paid for the overpriced shoes, the cashier gave me a ten percent off coupon for Sephora, which had just opened within my Kohls. Ulta Beauty didn’t carry Moroccanoil (I bought it through Amazon), so I looked at Sephora for it. I found it, plus an overpriced thickening shampoo that I still don’t know if it is making my thinning hair any thicker. With my one purchase at Sephora, I was now on their mailing list. They emailed me a free birthday gift on my birthday. I selected the Kosha lip oil.
Which brings me to the point in my story.
I hesitantly tried the Unbuttoned Kosha lip oil. Just the name lip oil scared me. I shy away from plumpers, volumizers, even heavy duty serums on my face. I can use a product for three or four days, and then turn itchy and splotchy and red. I figured the color wouldn’t work on my face or it would be too greasy or even dry out my lips. Instead, the glossy yet nonsticky formula appeared to moisturize my lips and even the muted brown tint looked cute, but too autumnish. I wanted a more spring color. I looked online and grimaced at the price: 22 dollars. Because of the turning seasons (and between the winter paleness of my skin to the summer Malibu Barbie tan), I frequently change my lipsticks and lip glosses or balms or whathaveyou. It’s difficult to find one that works, that feels good on the lips but also matches the color you want. Before Kosha, I had been putting three different Revlon shades to attain the perfect color: Primrose, then Silver City Pink, topped with Ipanema Beach. I gravitate to the pearls rather than the cremes or mattes. Not only do I prefer the shine of a pearl (or some call it satin), but the pearl colors don’t seep into my lip lines, instead floating on the top. I don’t mind having to reapply it throughout the day, as I’m always applying lip balm anyway. I hated the 22-dollar price tag on the Kosha lip oil, but figured it was worth it. Which leads me to the disaster of my story.
My Kohls’ Sephora of course didn’t have any in stock, except Jellyfish, a clear lip gloss. Who’s going to pay 22 dollars for a clear lip gloss, one that will probably be applied over another lip color that also cost 22 dollars? This appears to be the problem with Sephora and Ulta Beauty—they never have the normal colors in stock. When you ask when they will get it in stock, the reply is always, “We have no idea what they send us.” Let me make it clear to all companies everywhere: restock the normal colors: the lighter pinks, the more neutral browns, even the more subtle corals and plums. We aren’t buying black lipstick or florescent lipstick or glow in the dark colors. Out of spite, when I order the appropriate color online, I never order from the company, but from Amazon, where it comes from some other beauty store. I won’t reward stupidity.
I needed to run to the mall anyway for Cinnabon frosting. According to the website, my Malibu pink was in fact in stock at Sephora in the mall. I was only berating myself for not going in the morning—it was now two in the afternoon on Good Friday.
The parking lot was packed. I thought malls had died, but apparently not on a Friday afternoon when there was no school. I was even more stunned when I entered Sephora: wall to wall teens, the decibel so loud I could not hear their store music.
I was disgruntled on so many levels. What happened to the days of Wet n Wild? Even in high school, my friends and I scoured the drugstore discount makeup—Cover Girl and Maybelline filled our makeup cases. I always preferred Revlon lipstick, coating my lips in Copperglaze Brown for years (in my younger days, I never needed to switch shades with the seasons). Only old ladies bought makeup from Dayton’s or Younkers, although we liked to sample the perfumes, but could never afford such an expense, instead opting for the likes of Navy. More expensive items ended up on my Christmas list, like Victoria’s Secret lotion (I loved its greasiness). Mom always filled my stocking with nail polish and mascara.
Less and less teenagers are working nowadays. How were these teens paying for forty-dollar mascara or sixty-dollar moisturizer or thirty-dollar brow pens? (I still can’t get over that having Mommie Dearest eyebrows is a look sixteen-year-olds strive for.) I’ve read online articles that slam the beauty industry, marketing anti-aging creams to adolescents. Yet the pumping atmosphere of the store indicated that teens were not the least bit angst about the cost of beauty.
I wiggled my way through crop tops and skin-tight yoga pants, even a few guys who trailed their girlfriends or sisters begrudgingly. Yet I didn’t see make-upped faces—they all looked like they just rolled out of bed in a strategic way: messy buns, exercise attire, plain visages. So these unemployed teenagers were buying overly priced makeup but didn’t wear it on a regular basis? I was beyond confused. But then, I was the oldest one in the store. I had a son, not a daughter, so I was clueless when it came to teenage makeup trends.
When I found the Kosha aisle, an employee was talking to a mom and daughter, a short frumpy duo who were as confused as I was, at least the mom. I ascertained as I overheard their conversation that the mom was asking detailed questions about bases and moisturizers while the daughter looked on, pained and embarrassed. I assumed the daughter could not afford whatever she wanted, yet mom wanted to know exactly what she was paying for. The daughter probably found some trend, an online influencer, that said anybody who’s anybody must have this brand, a brand her friends probably already had. She was desperate to fit in but could not afford the price tag of doing so.
I squeezed past them to kneel, for the lip oil was on the bottom shelf. Of course no Malibu was there, only Jellyfish again and some hideous brown. I worked retail for years, so I helped myself to the bottom drawer, knowing that’s where the overstock hides. I was certainly not going to flag an employee down when the store looked like the pre-pandemic days of Black Friday.
“Excuse me, can I help you?” Her tone indicated that I just broke a cardinal rule of beauty stores: customers aren’t allowed to open the drawers, much less rifle through them, on their own.
“It says online that you had Malibu at the store, yet it’s not on the shelf.”
She closed the drawer, which forced me to stand up. I was face-to-face with an overly tanned twenty-year-old, sprouting Joan Crawford eyebrows, heavily smoked eyes, and a deep black/brown lipstick. I thought you’re the one who buys the off shades of lipstick that are always in stock.
Her puckered mouth tells me I’ve irritated her. “We did just get a truck today, but we haven’t stocked anything yet. Or somebody might have stolen it.”
You probably don’t want to admit that to a customer. “So what would you have done if I ordered online and just came to pick it up?”
“We would have called you to let you know we didn’t have it.”
Another reason I never ordered stuff online and then pick it up at the store.
As steam was rising from my head, she said, “I’m going to finish up with them”—she pointed to the frumpy duo—“and then I can help you.”
I imagined her retelling of this incident, how some old hag barged into the drawers by herself.
I hunted down another employee. She looked similar to Imitation Joan, except her eyes weren’t so heavily covered and her eyebrows wouldn’t stop traffic. They both had their hair parted down the middle and pulled back. Must be in the employee handbook.
She was frazzled but pleasant. No, the truck doesn’t have any Malibus. I should just order it online.
I stared at the lengthy line that ran almost the width of the store. What were those girls buying? I peered at the shelves as I walked toward the door into the mall—most of the shelves were only half-stocked, empty from thievery according to Imitation Joan.
Yet those girls didn’t understand the paradox of the beauty industry, the online influencers, and the trends they promote. The Woke culture demanded diversity, inclusivity, acceptance of all no matter gender or sexual orientation or weight or size. Yet one group is consistently excluded: the poor. A girl is probably mocked or bullied for pulling out a Wet n Wild lip gloss—even a five-year-old. The standard is set at an early age.
Such influencers influence mom too—their mothers probably drive the biggest SUVs, wear big hats, and slurp from Stanley cups. Moms aren’t telling their girls no regarding an upside-down triangle on the butts of jeans.
Beauty doesn’t have to cost a fortune—I should know, having worn makeup every morning of my life since eighth grade. (That’s not an exaggeration. Other than the morning of my emergency C-section, every morning I have worn makeup.) It costs more than the natural look, but I contest that I shouldn’t scare innocent children out in public with an unmakeupped face (yet overdoing it, painting on Joan Crawford eyebrows will scare children too). I’m all for make up and hairspray and hot rollers, yet our society isn’t like that of the Fifties and early Sixties, when women wore dresses and pearls and pillbox hats, always with lipsticked and mascaraed faces. Nowadays, girls are buying eighty-dollar hair products, only to throw their hair up into a messy bun five days a week; girls are buying forty-dollar brow pens, but only to look like Joan Crawford on the weekends. Do these girls even know that Maybelline and Cover Girl are perfectly appropriate for their sixteen-year-old face? That Maybelline and Cover Girl have more color options—that are in stock? Or is Maybelline and Cover Girl the poor man’s makeup, the lip gloss one would never openly pull from her pocket, a dirty little secret to avoid being bullied for not having the latest and most expensive trend on social media?
I was sad as I left the mall. Beauty is already such a slippery slope for women: our age, weight, and body shape give us enough to worry about, so many easy cliffs to fall from as our self-esteem takes one hit after the other. Now social media and influencers have started girls on the beauty path with direct how-tos and instructional videos that warn them of the dangers of not having THE trend, which will last such a short time, not even long enough to get their money’s worth out of the sixty-dollar product. And this path starts as soon as a girl gets her hands on a digital device and a social media account, some as early as kindergarten.
Sephora might have looked fun on the surface: the buzzing teenagers hopping from one aisle to the next, the constant chatter, the long lines. But the pressure underneath to have what is so necessary to be a part of the upper echelon. Now it’s not just an upside-down triangle on your butt that dictates your worth—it’s everything you put on your face, use on your hair, the cup you drink from.
That doesn’t sound fun at all.